


Always

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, post 4x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The immediate aftermath of S04E15. </p><p>Oliver gets a call in the night, and despite everything, he'll always be at her side when she needs him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

The ring still laid in the same corner of the table she had set it down on. He hadn’t the heart to move it, to touch it, because taking it back would be a finality that he wasn’t prepared for yet. She’d only been gone for an hour, and in that hour he hadn’t made any move to get up from the chair. He just stared at the ring, trying to replace the suddenly lonely image of it with how it had looked with the glint of Christmas lights when he’d first placed it on her finger, or how it had brightened her features with assurance when he’d given it back to her in the hospital. A family heirloom to make her his family with a permanence he’d never craved with another woman before.

Loss was not new to him. Oliver had lost people, people of varying closeness to him. Some losses had stung, some had passed him by with a coldness, and some had torn his heart from his chest. This bypassed anything he had felt before, with the exception of the moment he’d held her bleeding in his arms. He hadn’t imagined that this might feel the same - but it seemed that losing Felicity Smoak was a very specific pain that he was unable to fathom. 

After hours, he placed the laptop back on charge, still reeling from the ultimatum he’d forced upon himself that morning and not ready or the finality that came from sending his son away - not ready to lose his son and the woman he loved in the same day. He moved to the couch, aware that the sun had now set through the large windows as he leaned back. There was no sense going up to bed. He wouldn’t be able to lie down in the bed he held her in and stare at the empty space where she should be. The room was filled with her, and given that he hadn’t seen her pack any bags just yet, he was certain that everything was still scattered across the room as she’d last left it, and he wasn’t ready to face the sight yet.

On the contemplation that the couch cushions weren’t as comfortable as the bed, he was about to close his eyes when the ring of his cell phone startled him. He jerked towards it in the hope that it might be her, that she wanted to talk, hell even that she wanted to yell at him, but instead it was John’s name that flashed across the screen. 

He almost didn’t answer. But he knew that Felicity may have avoided staying at Thea and Laurel’s because his sister was there, and if she’d chosen not to be alone she’d have gone to John and Lyla’s instead. There was always the empty penthouse at Palmer Tech, but he doubted that she wanted to be alone right then and he really hoped that she wasn’t. Regardless, if he didn’t answer, there was every chance that John had found out what had happened and would march over to give the lecture and break down the door in the first place, so he slid his thumb across the screen to answer the call.

“John, I can’t-”

“It’s Felicity,” he stated quickly, cutting him off.

Oliver sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “Is she with you?”

“Oliver, she wants you here, but you need to stay calm.”

At that, he realised there was the commotion of sound from the other side of the phone call, easily heard over John’s hushed voice. Why would he need to stay calm? The mere insinuation that there was something to stay calm about suggested that something had happened that would invoke something very much not calm from him. 

“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting up on the couch. The thin blanket he’d pulled off the back of it was pushed aside in preparation. If something was wrong, he needed to move, and he’d need to move quickly.

“It’s her legs, she’s in a lot of pain.”

His heart sank for a moment. Despite their parting, he’d not missed the disbelief and joy that had crossed her fingers when she’d been able to stand again. He’d loved the sight of her moving around on her own feet up until the moment he was hit with the realisation that she was using those cherished steps to put distance between them. Curtis hadn’t mentioned the implant causing any pain if it started working again, so his immediate thought was that something had gone wrong.

Had she pushed herself? How far had she gone on her own two feet earlier? Surely she hadn’t walked the four blocks to the Diggle’s? He’d hoped she’d gone downstairs and got in a cab, or called John to go pick her up, or even Curtis who had been driving her around a lot lately. God, he didn’t even think he just let her get up and leave. He should have thought. He should have done something. She’d been working so hard on what Paul had given her, and they’d been doing everything they could to make sure they didn’t waste this opportunity. But if something had gone wrong? The thought of losing that again so soon...

“What kind of pain?” he asked, a tremor in his voice as he got up and searched for his jacket. He found it slung over the armchair and he slit on as best he could balance the phone on each shoulder. 

“She says it’s like a cramp, but I think it might be nerve pain,” John told him. “I offered to take her to the hospital but she says she doesn’t want that. She wanted me to call you.”

She was asking for him. She wanted him. Because as much space as she needed, she was in pain and knew that he’d be there for her. He wanted to be at her side, of course he did, but at the same time he didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to tell John to take her to the hospital and that he’d meet them there. After everything they’d been through since her surgeries, the hospital would always be his first instinct, he’d rather not take any chances with her health, especially if he knew she was in pain. But the hospital also had a horrible track record of taking her away from him, of telling him that he needed to wait, to not be there, to tell him to sit and deal with the paperwork while she was off having test after test, and all the while he’d be holding on to her engagement ring and her earrings in the waiting room until she was back. 

He took a moment to inhale deeply, centring himself as he shoved the car keys into his pocket. He needed to see her first, assess the situation before demanding the hospital. She knew she’d have to go if it needed it, but if she was asking for him it may well be that she was in too much pain to make the decision for herself. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he told John, already leaving the apartment and pulling the door closed behind him. “Call Curtis and get him over, the number’s in her phone, and tell him to bring Paul with him.”

“Got it,” John told him. There was a shift of sound behind him and Oliver frowned - what was happening? “See you soon,” he murmured before the call was disconnected.

 

\--

 

The moment that John opened the front door, Oliver forgot all about their fight. He forgot that she’d taken off her ring, and that it was still on the dining room table. He forgot that she’d asked for space, that she wasn’t sure she could do this anymore, and mostly he forgot that the only reason she was taking that space was because he’d lied to her, because he’d failed her. In that moment, he forgot everything that was keeping them apart because all that registered was the sound of soft, frustrated cries coming from further inside the apartment. 

The sound of the woman he loved in pain. 

He’d heard cries like that before, when they first came home from the hospital and the surgical wounds in her back would keep her awake. As painless as her legs were, she still suffered getting comfortable in bed with the sutures, and it had lead to many tired nights where she was too exhausted to do anything but cry as she failed to get to sleep.

John nodded for him to enter, and Oliver moved blindly until he was at her side, expertly dodging the scatterings of children’s toys. Some of them he’d purchased - they’d sent Sara a gift from every vacation spot while they were travelling - but he was glad none of them hindered his route to Felicity.

She was lying on her side on the couch, her legs outstretched beneath the duvet that was balled around her with her hands curled up around her face. He knew in that position she’d have been biting her fingernails, a nervous habit she’d never dropped. He didn’t even bother to shed his jacket as he crouched down before him. Her eyes flickered to his as he got closer, but she didn’t stop crying and that was what broke him. Her cheeks were wet with the still streaming tears, her breath hiccuping on each intake through her gentle sobs.

“Hey,” he whispered, one arm curling over the arm of the couch to stroke her hair back and the other found hers, their fingers knotting together instinctively. He didn’t force a smile, didn’t move for assurances, not while he didn’t know what was wrong. 

“You’re here,” she croaked, as if she’d expected him not to come.

“Always,” he said gently, his thumb stroking her hairline. “Talk to me, tell me what’s hurting.”

“It’s like cramp, but it won’t go away,” she tells him, her voice hoarse in a way that he can’t even imagine how long she cried before she gave in and asked John to call him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--- I didn’t want to wake Sara up--”

“Don’t you worry about that girl,” John assured her, leaning over the back of the couch and setting his hand on her shoulder. “It’ll take an army to wake her up. I’ll get you some more water, okay?”

“‘Kay,” she replied, her breath hitching as she gripped tighter to Oliver’s hand. “You came-”

“Of course,” he assured her softly, his thumb moving across her temple. She could disappear on him, take off his ring, even if she’d gone as far as to tell him that she didn’t love him, he’d still have come the moment she asked for him. “None of that matters right now, okay? This is all that matters, so talk me through it. Is it just your legs, or does your back hurt?” he asked.

“Legs,” she responded, shifting one uncomfortably with a wince on her face. 

“Okay, so movement’s still there,” he nodded. “Can I look?”

She nodded, and he pulled the duvet back from her legs. She was wearing a pair of pyjama shorts, which showed her bare legs to him, and he checked each of them with a small brush of his hand as he went, making sure there were no dangerous signs of a blood clot that would have him immediately rushing her to the hospital. Thankfully, nothing seemed immediately wrong, so he rested one hand down to her bent knee and rubbing it lightly. He didn’t even think about the action, as if their day together hadn’t been so broken. This was about what she needed in the moment - and she’d decided she’d needed him. “Curtis and Paul are on their way, they’ll let us know what we need to do,” he told her.

“We?” she asked with a small intake of breath.

“We,” he nodded, moving back to take her hands again. No matter what the night ended in, he would remain at her side until she sent him away. “You wanted me here, I’m right here.”

Her eyes were tear-filled again when she nodded, leaning to rest her forehead against their hands. “Thank you,” she whispered through a quiet sob when his lips came down to the crown of her head. 

“One thing at a time,” he assured her. “Let’s just get through tonight, and figure out what’s going on, and then we’ll figure out what happens next, okay?

“‘Kay,” she whispered.

They remained in that position for twenty minutes. It took Curtis and Paul longer than planned to reach the apartment due to an accident in the city centre, but they arrived eventually, and it was only then that Oliver shifted his position. He’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t drinking in the sight of her curled towards him, her eyes shut even as tears streamed freely and she cried through her pain, because it meant he could touch her, he could hold her, and in that moment he wasn’t sure when he’d get to do that next. It was selfish, but necessary for them both. She needed it as much as he did. But once the others arrived, he moved to sit on the arm of the couch beside her head. She bent her arm backwards, holding his hand still as their newest friends did what they could to help.

Oliver remained silent as Paul examined Felicity’s legs, testing the muscle usage and asking her questions about the pain, all the while that Curtis was running diagnostics to ensure he couldn’t detect any problems with the implant. Every time she flinched or whimpered, Oliver squeezed her hand tighter. 

After, Paul sat back on the coffee table, clasping his hands in front of his face. “It could be some reactions from the nerves starting to work again, which isn’t uncommon if you’ve been walking around a lot today,but as we’re working with brand new technology here I think we do need to be cautious,” he decided, sharing an agreeable nod with Curtis. “As much as we trust the technology, the human body has reactions all of it’s own, so I think you do need to go to the hospital and have a couple of tests done. 

“No,” Felicity half-whimpered, turning her face into Oliver’s arm. 

“Felicity-” he started.

“I don’t want to go back,” she told him, her voice soft but betraying her real exhaustion. The hospital meant tests, it meant waiting around, and needles, and that wasn’t what she wanted. “I just want this to stop so I can go to sleep.”

Oliver’s other hand came down to stroke up and down her arm. He leant down slightly. “If they think we should go, we should go,” he told her.

“I don’t want to,” she murmured, her voice hitching dangerously again. 

“Felicity,” he repeated. “You’re in pain, so we need to go,” he told her. “This is an amazing thing that’s happened, but we need to make sure that this is working the way that we want it to.” Her hand squeezed around his, and she said nothing. He knew her enough to nod at Paul. “Do we need to call ahead if we go now?” he asked softly.

Paul shook his head. “I’ll call her doctor to meet you there. It’s probably best if we go too, since it is a work in progress.” He turned his attention down to Felicity, giving her his own assurances as Oliver went in search of John.

“We’re taking her to the hospital, they think it’s best she gets a scan done to make sure nothing’s gone wrong with the implant,” he explained, sighing as he ran his hand over his face.

John nodded. “You okay?” he checked.

Oliver shook his head, not even attempting to hide his sigh. “I don’t like seeing her in pain.”

John took her coat from where it hung by the door, passing it to Oliver. “Oliver, for what it’s worth, I don’t think she wants space,” he explained quietly. “I think she wants to need it, but she cares about you a lot, and she’s making a point.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I’m respecting her wishes, but if what she wants right now is me-”

“You were the first thing she asked for,” John told him. “Lyla’s working so I have to stay with Sara, but if you need anything at the hospital, call me.”

“I will,” he nodded, shaking John’s hand. “Thank you.”

\--

Their time in the hospital was spent mostly in an eerie silence that was far too reflective of their first trip when she was forcing smiles and adjusting to the idea of not walking again. Only this time there were no smiles, there was only caution. He carried her into the emergency room where she was admitted right away, it was the easiest they’d ever made it into the hospital thanks to Paul’s advance call. Oliver took care of the paperwork while they took her for her tests, and while he hated not being at her side, he knew that he couldn’t go with her.

This time he didn’t kiss her before she went off. He didn’t lean over, place his lips to hers and tell her that he loved her.

Instead he held her hand, kissed her fingers, and gave her a firm nod. “I’ll be right here.”

When she came back to the room an hour later, he was shown in immediately. When she saw it was him, he hesitated in the doorway, afraid that her time alone during the testing might have changed her mind about whether or not she wanted him there, but she held her hand out to him without question. He tried not to think that twelve hours earlier she was wearing her engagement ring on that hand, but he slid his fingers between hers and sat in the chair at her side. Her face was somewhat fuzzy, and he guessed from her calm demeanour that she’d been given some painkillers to help her in the meantime, but she still shifted uncomfortably. 

Every time he moved, he squeezed her hand. “Are the painkillers working?” he asked her, breaking the silence.

“The pain’s gone,” she assured him. “It’s just the cramp, like the ache,” she explained, closing her eyes. “What if I did too much, what if-”

“Hey, don’t think like that,” he murmured, clenching his hand over hers. “Curtis is confident-”

“But what if?” she asked him, her eyes flickering open to his.

“You didn’t let this break you before,” he reminded her. “You are Felicity Smoak, no matter what. If it doesn’t work, it’ll be hard to accept, I know that we both got our hopes up, but this isn’t going to be the end of you, no matter what.” Despite their current situation, he raised her hand with his and placed a chaste kiss to the back of her hand. “Felicity Smoak is always Felicity Smoak. Being scared doesn’t mean you’re not brave.”

“Are you scared?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

She takes a deep breath of her own, falling silent for a moment and he can see her shifting around uncomfortably again. He casts a careful glance at her before he brings one hand down to her upper thigh, gently kneading his fingers into the muscles that feel tense beneath his touch. After a moment, she lets her breath out in a shuddering release, turning her face into the pillow.

“Is this okay?” he asked her quietly.

“Yeah,” she whispered after a moment. 

He didn’t speak again, leaving her to her peace as he worked at the muscles causing her pain. Leg cramp was something she usually suffered with in her calf muscles if she’d been running around in her heels all day, so rubbing her legs was nothing new to him. There had been plenty of nights she’d hitched her aching leg over his hips and let him work at the muscles until she could get back to sleep, but not since the attack. 

“Oliver,” she spoke quietly, when he’d started circling her kneecap. He glanced in her direction. “Where do I go, when they discharge me?”

“Where do you want to go?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I want to come home, but… I don’t know.”

“Felicity, if you want to be at home, in your own bed, I can go-”

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeated.

He knew that it wasn’t just about where she was going to catch up on a night of missed sleep. It was about them. So he shifted his hands back to hers, loosely curling his fingers around hers. “Selfishly, I want you at home, with me,” he told her, inhaling deeply. “But I don’t have the right to make that choice for you,” he knew. “I know I have… I can’t even begin to list the ways that I need to apologise for the things I did and the decisions I made. But I also know that the moment you’re ready to come home, I’m right here.”

“You’re here now,” she pointed out.

“I’m always going to be here,” he told her. “But you said you needed space, and I’m not going to rush you on that if that’s what you need.”

“I don’t know what I need,” she shook her head. “I’m just...hurt.”

“I know,” he swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but when I heard you sending William away…”

He ducked his head, his eyes burning at the mere mention of it. Right now, his son was being uprooted from his home, his friends, his school...all to minimise the risk to him for his mere biological input. 

“It made me scared,” she admitted quietly, her breath hitching. “Because we were making all these plans for our future together and suddenly you’re sending away your son just because he’s yours, and I--”

“Felicity-”

“What if it was our child in danger?” she asked him. “Would you-”

“Never,” he said with a fierce determination. “Never ours, I-”

“But you’re not supposed to love William any more or less than you would ours,” she told him. “So what does it say that you would send William away but not ours?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “But Samantha doesn’t want him in danger, doesn’t want him anywhere near this kind of life. If we… whatever happens, I know that we would be able to build things together…”

“My dad left me,” she reminded him quietly. “I couldn’t...I won’t marry someone who might do that to my kid.”

He dipped his head. She raised a very good point - why hadn’t the thought of William moving away immobilised him like the suggestion of sending a child of his and Felicity’s away? Yes, it had pained him, it had torn him apart. It had found a part of his heart that he’d been saving away and twisted it into sheer agony. But the idea of sending Felicity and their child away? The idea of taking them out of his life just because it was safer? After so long of finding a way to balance their live with what they did? It was unthinkable.

Did that make him a worse father to William?

“Samantha doesn’t want William to be part of this life,” he murmured, his attention on her aching legs instead of on her eyes. “We… we were...are...figuring out how to have each other and have this life. Like you said, we can have both. But kids…” he inhaled deeply, shaking his head. “I know that precautions have to be taken to keep kids safe, but I can’t give this up because it’s what Samantha wants, and the alternative to that was this sacrifice. But if stopping this crusade for our kids is what it took, I would always trust you to make that call, to say we were in too deep. Because it’d be our kid,” he shrugged with a wistful smile of what may no longer happen. “It’s not about how much I love my kids, it’s about how much I trust their mother.”

“Oliver…” she whispers, tugging on his hand until he was looking at her again. There were tears on her cheeks, and he went to speak, unsure of what would come out except for her name, but she got there first. “You trust me?”

“Of course, I trust you,” he breathed out. “Felicity...if it came to leaving to keep our child safe, we’d leave together. We’d start afresh somewhere else, but you wouldn’t be alone.”

She sniffed, turning her face into the pillow again, but she took his hand with her, bringing it up to her chest and cradling it there. He didn’t fight the movement, clenching his fingers around hers as her breath hitched.

They remained that way until the doctor returned with her test results, luckily confirming that there was nothing to worry about. It was simply her nerves over-acting to the biostimulator, a process that would usually take months condensed into a few days, so they gave her some painkillers to take home for the nerve pain, and instructed a new physical therapy route for her which was given to Paul. 

When they left to discharge her, it left a silence in the room. She seemed to be avoiding the issue, but it couldn’t be ignored any longer. “Felicity…” he started, attracting her attention. “Where do you want me to take you?”

She chewed on her lip, and she looked so exhausted in that moment he wanted to just take her home and put her to bed, consequences be damned. Her silence held until after she’d sat up and slipped her jacket on, regained her shoes and was perched on the edge of the bed. 

“I don’t think I’m ready to take the ring back,” she whispered.

It was piercing, the pain her words ignited, but he knew it was deserved. He bowed his head, nodding. 

“But I do want to come home,” she added so quietly he almost missed it.

“You do?” he asked her.

Her nod was slow. “I love you,” she told him. “This is hard, and I’m hurting but I do love you.” His hands reached for hers, twining them together. “I want to come home, but I still need time to...take this all in.”

“Of course,” he nodded, a little too eagerly. “I understand, I do…”

“I don’t want this to break us,” she whispered. “I just…”

“Want to sleep,” he filled in for her with a small smile, letting her know that it was okay to be done with the big details for now. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, letting out a long sigh. 

\--

She took the ring back two months later, when walking and pain was no longer an issue. He slept on the couch for a week to give her some space, but that was abandoned when she made her way down to him one night and curled into his side. With the original message to William not sent, they made a new one for him together, introducing the both of them, and telling him that Samantha would show him the video when she felt it was right for him to see it, even if that were earlier than eighteen, and that if he wanted to be a part of their family after that, they would always have room for him. They learned to function as a family, not as a couple. Sharing a bed became reclaimed kisses, became “I love yous”, became coffee in bed and dinner together. And one day, she walked into the kitchen as he was making breakfast and put the ring back on.

He made love to her after, turned off the stove and carried her back to bed.  

“I don’t want to take this off again,” she told him, as her hand traced across his chest, the ring glinting in the afternoon light.

“I won’t give you a reason to,” he assured her.


End file.
